Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
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Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Enough reality!

Associated Press reports at Newsday.com: TV Viewers Say Enough With Reality Shows:

Most people say they've had about enough of the reality shows and talk shows crowding the airwaves, an AP-TV Guide poll found.
They still have a big appetite for news programming -- a more traditional source of reality TV -- with almost three in four saying they're satisfied with the amount of news on TV or they want more.

MORE news? The market for television news is ALREADY oversaturated! CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC, Bloomberg Information Television, CNN Headline News, ESPNEWS, and numerous other channels and shows are out there. What MORE do people want? The ability to see CNN International 24 hours a day instead of just the middle of the night? SkyNews from Europe? The BBC on a replay channel? Canadian news? News from around the country (everybody's 6 or 11 for the entire region in a rotating schedule, perhaps? See WPRI from yesterday at 4:30 PM, then WBZ at 5, then WGME at 5:30???)?

The all-news channels -- now including CNN Headline News, now that they've increased their live programming (instead of being a replay channel,* and then a story- or segment-replay channel) -- tend to focus on (satellite) interview segments with pundits blathering until some major live breaking news event happens that can be tuned in on satellite.

*Note: Has anybody come up with better terms than "news(cast) replay channel" or "news segment-replay channel" to describe what I'm specifically trying to say?

News(cast) replay channel: A cable channel, often available to subscribers of only one cable system, that broadcasts one local TV station's previous newscasts over and over until the next newscast goes live -- in a sense, the way CNN Headline News used to several years ago. Examples: The Rhode Island News Channel, whatever WMTW calls its 24 hour rebroadcast of News 8 on Channel 9, and Belo's various cable news channels, including NewsWatch on Channel 15 in New Orleans.

News segment-replay channel: A cable channel that broadcasts ever-changing newscasts around the clock that are sometimes live, but mostly taped. CNN Headline News was one of these until its recent overhaul; these days the Time Warner group of local cable news channels are the biggest ones (these include NY1, Capital News 9, News 14 Carolina, Bay News 9, and RNews).

** Note: Unsalted macadamia nuts are almost pointless.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 9/14/2005 07:04:00 PM ... Email this entry ...
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